In what is quickly becoming the next big ongoing back and forth between Apple and [insert third party here] of 2014, a new development has unfolded in the antitrust dispute over Apple’s iBooks practices. Michael Bromwich, the external monitor assigned to ensure Apple complies to antitrust laws relating to its iBooks program, has been temporarily removed, Reuters reports, following an “administrative stay” granted to Apple following a recent complaint filed by the Cupertino tech company against the attorney.
The Department of Justice responded strongly to Apple’s request to remove Mr. Bromwich earlier this month accusing Apple of ‘character assassination’ against Mr. Bromwich, and the Court later denied Apple’s request to have the external monitor removed.
Next, a panel of three judges will hear Apple’s motion to keep the external monitor from assignment as it pursues an appeal to the original decision which placed Mr. Bromwich on assignment.
Notable is Apple’s efforts to fight this battle at all as it recently settled with the ITC on a separate dispute involving in-app purchases with its App Store. In that dispute, Apple had implemented several safe guards against accidental in-app purchases already, but decidedly settled anyway. In this instance, Apple is pushing forward defending its deals with publishers leading up the the debut of its iBooks program.
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- Court responds to Apple’s request to replace attorney in ebooks case(9to5mac.com)
- Apple asks court to remove ebooks compliance monitor from his post(9to5mac.com)
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I’m confused …. They received a stay, but the article mentions the court told them no and accused them of character assassination. So who granted the stay and how did it come about? It seems like we are missing a part of the story/timeline.
The receive a stay from the appeals court pending there presenting evidence against browich and asking for his removal. It was not the court that accused apple of character assassination it was the DOJ in there public statement in defense of Judge Cote and Bromwich.
I’m still trying to understand how they lost this case when ebooks are the same price on the Google Play store as well.
The Judge was bias from the beginning and even said Apple was guilty before the trial started. So even after Apple had several witnesses testify that Apple did nothing wrong but the judge handed down a guilty verdict anyways. Then on top of that she hires her friend Bromwich to extort Apple out of thousands of dollars as a monitor even though he had no experience doing such a job. Then Bromwich hires another guy to do his work while he goes around harassing the top executives which had nothing to do with the case to begin with. On top of that the latest information coming out says that when Apple started the book business the prices of e-books went down from $19.95 to $4.95. Totally blowing the DOJ’s accusations out of the water. The appeals court has ordered the stay since the judge in the original case is bias towards Apple and won’t listen or hear anything Apple has to say period. Now it’s up to the appeals court to hopefully knock this DOJ crap down for good.